Prince and the Pauper (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (23 page)

“Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou‘lt find nor limb nor feature that cannot bide the test. Scour and scan me to thy content, my dear old Hugh—I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old Miles, thy lost brother, is’t not so? Ah, ’tis a great day—I
said
’twas a great day! Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek—lord, I am like to die of very joy!”

He was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up his hand in dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his breast, saying with emotion:

“Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous disappointment!”

Miles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his tongue, and cried out:

“
What
disappointment? Am I not thy brother?”

Hugh shook his head sadly, and said:

“I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the resemblances that are hid from mine. Alack, I fear me the letter spoke but too truly.”

“What letter?”

“One that came from oversea, some six or seven years ago. It said my brother died in battle.”

“It was a lie! Call thy father—he will know me.”

“One may not call the dead.”

“Dead?” Miles’s voice was subdued, and his lips trembled. “My father dead!—oh, this is heavy news. Half my new joy is withered now. Prithee, let me see my brother Arthur—he will know me; he will know me and console me.”

“He, also, is dead.”

“God be merciful to me, a stricken man! Gone—both gone—the worthy taken and the worthless spared in me! Ah! I crave your mercy!—do not say the Lady Edith—”

“Is dead? No, she lives.”

“Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again! Speed thee, brother—let her come to me! An
she
say I am not myself—but she will not; no, no,
she
will know me, I were a fool to doubt it. Bring her—bring the old servants; they, too, will know me.”

“All are gone but five—Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and Margaret.”

So saying, Hugh left the room. Miles stood musing awhile, then began to walk the floor, muttering:

“The five arch villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and honest—’tis an odd thing.”

He continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had forgotten the king entirely. By and by his majesty said gravely, and with a touch of genuine compassion, though the words themselves were capable of being interpreted ironically:

“Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world whose identity is denied, and whose claims are derided. Thou hast company.”

“Ah, my king,” cried Hendon, coloring slightly, “do not thou condemn me—wait, and thou shalt see. I am no impostor—she will say it; you shall hear it from the sweetest lips in England. I an impostor? Why I know this old hall, these pictures of my ancestors, and all these things that are about us, as a child knoweth its own nursery. Here was I born and bred, my lord; I speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and should none else believe, I pray thee do not thou doubt me—I could not bear it.”

“I do not doubt thee,” said the king, with a childlike simplicity and faith.

“I thank thee out of my heart!” exclaimed Hendon, with a fervency which showed that he was touched. The king added, with the same gentle simplicity:

“Dost thou doubt
me?”

A guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that the door opened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the necessity of replying.

A beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her came several liveried servants. The lady walked slowly, with her head bowed and her eyes fixed upon the floor. The face was unspeakably sad. Miles Hendon sprang forward, crying out:

“Oh, my Edith, my darling—”

But Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady:

“Look upon him. Do you know him?”

At the sound of Miles’s voice the woman had started slightly, and her cheeks had flushed; she was trembling now. She stood still, during an impressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted up her head and looked into Hendon’s eyes with a stony and frightened gaze; the blood sank out of her face, drop by drop, till nothing remained but the gray pallor of death; then she said, in a voice as dead as the face, “I know him not!” and turned, with a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of the room.

Miles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. After a pause, his brother said to the servants:

“You have observed him. Do you know him?”

They shook their heads; then the master said:

“The servants know you not, sir. I fear there is some mistake. You have seen that my wife knew you not.”

“Thy
wife!”
In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an iron grip about his throat. “Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it all! Thou’st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride and goods are its fruit. There—now get thee gone, lest I shame mine honorable soldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a manikin!”

Hugh, red-faced and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest chair, and commanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous stranger. They hesitated, and one of them said:

“He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless.”

“Armed? What of it, and ye so many? Upon him, I say!”

But Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added:

“Ye know me of old—I have not changed; come on, an it like you.”

This reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held back.

“Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the doors, while I send one to fetch the watch,” said Hugh. He turned, at the threshold, and said to Miles, “You’ll find it to your advantage to offend not with useless endeavors at escape.”

“Escape? Spare thyself discomfort, an that is all that troubles thee. For Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its belongings. He will remain—doubt it not.”

T
he king sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said:

“ ’Tis strange—most strange. I cannot account for it.”

“No, it is not strange, my liege. I know him, and this conduct is but natural. He was a rascal from his birth.”

“Oh, I spake not of him, Sir Miles.”

“Not of him? Then of what? What is it that is strange?”

“That the king is not missed.”

“How? Which? I doubt I do not understand.”

“Indeed! Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the land is not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my person and making search for me? Is it no matter for commotion and distress that the head of the state is gone?—that I am vanished away and lost?”

“Most true, my king, I had forgot.” Then Hendon sighed, and muttered to himself, “Poor ruined mind—still busy with its pathetic dream.”

“But I have a plan that shall right us both. I will write a paper, in three tongues—Latin, Greek, and English—and thou shalt haste away with it to London in the morning. Give it to none but my uncle, the Lord Hertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote it. Then he will send for me.”

“Might it not be best, my prince, that we wait here until I prove myself and make my rights secure to my domains? I should be so much the better able then to—”

The king interrupted him imperiously:

“Peace! What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests, contrasted with matters which concern the weal of a nation and the integrity of a throne!” Then he added, in a gentle voice, as if he were sorry for his severity, “Obey and have no fear; I will right thee, I will make thee whole—yes, more than whole. I shall remember, and requite.”

So saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work. Hendon contemplated him lovingly awhile, then said to himself:

“An it were dark, I should think it
was
a king that spoke; there’s no denying it, when the humor’s upon him he doth thunder and lighten like your true king—now where got he that trick? See him scribble and scratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to be Latin and Greek—and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device for diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post away to-morrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me.”

The next moment Sir Miles’s thoughts had gone back to the recent episode. So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the king presently handed him the paper which he had been writing, he received it and pocketed it without being conscious of the act. “How marvelous strange she acted,” he muttered. “I think she knew me—and I think she did
not
know me. These opinions do conflict, I perceive it plainly; I cannot reconcile them, neither can I, by argument, dismiss either of the two, or even persuade one to outweigh the other. The matter standeth simply thus: she
must
have known my face, my figure, my voice, for how could it be otherwise? yet she
said
she knew me not, and that is proof perfect, for she cannot lie. But stop—I think I begin to see. Peradventure he hath influenced her—commanded her—compelled her to lie. That is the solution! The riddle is unriddled. She seemed dead with fear—yes, she was under his compulsion. I will seek her; I will find her; now that he is away, she will speak her true mind. She will remember the old times when we were little playfellows together, and this will soften her heart, and she will no more betray me, but will confess me. There is no treacherous blood in her—no, she was always honest and true. She had loved me in those old days—this is my security; for whom one has loved, one cannot betray.”

He stepped eagerly toward the door; at that moment it opened, and the Lady Edith entered. She was very pale, but she walked with a firm step, and her carriage was full of grace and gentle dignity. Her face was as sad as before.

Miles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but she checked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped where he was. She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise. Thus simply did she take the sense of old-comradeship out of him, and transform him into a stranger and a guest. The surprise of it, the bewildering unexpectedness of it, made him begin to question, for a moment, if he
was
the person he was pretending to be, after all. The Lady Edith said:

“Sir, I have come to warn you. The mad cannot be persuaded out of their delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to avoid perils. I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of honest truth to you, and therefore is not criminal—but do not tarry here with it; for here it is dangerous.” She looked steadily into Miles’s face a moment, then added, impressively, “It is the more dangerous for that you
are
much like what our lost lad must have grown to be, if he had lived.”

“Heavens, madam, but I
am
he!”

“I truly think you think it, sir. I question not your honesty in that—I but warn you, that is all. My husband is master in this region; his power hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or starve, as he wills. If you resembled not the man whom you profess to be, my husband might bid you pleasure yourself with your dream in peace; but trust me, I know him well, I know what he will do; he will say to all that you are but a mad impostor, and straightway all will echo him.” She bent upon Miles that same steady look once more, and added: “If you were Miles Hendon, and he knew it and all the region knew it—consider what I am saying, weigh it well—you would stand in the same peril, your punishment would be no less sure; he would deny you and denounce you, and none would be bold enough to give you countenance.”

“Most truly I believe it,” said Miles, bitterly. “The power that can command one lifelong friend to betray and disown another, and be obeyed, may well look to be obeyed in quarters where bread and life are on the stake and no cobweb ties of loyalty and honor are concerned.”

A faint tinge appeared for a moment in the lady’s cheek, and she dropped her eyes to the floor; but her voice betrayed no emotion when she proceeded:

“I have warned you, I must still warn you, to go hence. This man will destroy you else. He is a tyrant who knows no pity. I, who am his fettered slave, know this. Poor Miles, and Arthur, and my dear guardian, Sir Richard, are free of him, and at rest—better that you were with them than that you bide here in the clutches of this miscreant. Your pretensions are a menace to his title and possessions; you have assaulted him in his own house—you are ruined if you stay. Go—do not hesitate. If you lack money, take this purse, I beg of you, and bribe the servants to let you pass. Oh, be warned, poor soul, and escape while you may.”

Miles declined the purse with a gesture, and rose up and stood before her.

“Grant me one thing,” he said. “Let your eyes rest upon mine, so that I may see if they be steady. There—now answer me. Am I Miles Hendon?”

“No. I know you not.”

“Swear it!”

The answer was low, but distinct:

“I swear.”

“Oh, this passes belief!”

“Fly! Why will you waste the precious time? Fly and save yourself.”

At that moment the officers burst into the room and a violent struggle began; but Hendon was soon overpowered and dragged away. The king was taken also, and both were bound and led to prison.

T
he cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a large room where persons charged with trifling offenses were commonly kept. They had company, for there were some twenty manacled or fettered prisoners here, of both sexes and of varying ages—an obscene and noisy gang. The king chafed bitterly over the stupendous indignity thus put upon his royalty, but Hendon was bewildered. He had come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting to find everybody wild with joy over his return; and instead had got the cold shoulder and a jail. The promise and the fulfilment differed so widely, that the effect was stunning; he could not decide whether it was most tragic or most grotesque. He felt much as a man might who had danced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow, and got struck by lightning.